Abstract
In this article we investigate the electoral decline of the Flemish social democratic party sp.a by analysing the intraparty (in)congruence in opinion structure using a unique pooled dataset that contains party elites, members and voters in Flanders-Belgium. We combine two complementary approaches on incongruence: attitudinal and ideological congruence. A hypothesis derived from post-Marxism is formulated in terms of attitudinal congruence and tested using pairwise means comparisons, while hypotheses from cleavage theory are formulated in terms of ideological incongruence and tested empirically using Latent Class Analysis. Results show that party elites predominantly adhere to a left-universalistic ideology while left-particularists have left the party en masse, confirming the realignment thesis of cleavage theory and rejecting expectations from post-Marxist theory. We conclude that Flemish social democracy’s left-universalistic elites have largely lost connection with their left-particularistic base while managing an insufficient appeal among (centre-)left-universalistic middle class voters.
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Notes
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Since classes may vary substantively across groups, multiple group analyses may thus require more classes than single-group analyses in order to allow for this variability.
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The observed pattern also contradicts May’s Law of curvilinear disparity (May, 1972): the rank-and-file members—as a proxy for activists—do not tend to be more radical than both the party leadership and its voters.
-
The positioning of the latent classes onto the two-dimensional space was calculated as follows. Since all probabilities add up to 1, a high score on the middle category ensures the variability of the item is reduced (by 1—the middle category). Thus, the middle category of all items was disregarded. In the next step, the two categories at the extreme are deducted from one another, creating either a positive or a negative value for each item. The resulting scores are summed and divided by the total number of items on that dimension, ensuring each item has an equal weight within the dimension.
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Acknowledgement
This study was made possible with the support of the National Science Foundation Flanders – FWO-Vlaanderen, the National Lottery – De Nationale Loterij and The KU Leuven Research council.
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Appendices
Appendices
Appendix 1
Social characteristics. Row probabilities from a multinomial logistic regression
Left-universalists |
Centre-left-universalists |
Centrists |
Left-particularists |
Centre-right-universalists |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sex |
χ2 = 14.43; p < 0.01 |
||||
Female |
0.31 |
0.25 |
0.11 |
0.24 |
0.08 |
Male |
0.39 |
0.24 |
0.11 |
0.17 |
0.09 |
Age |
χ2 = 105.83; p < 0.001 |
||||
15–25 |
0.51 |
0.15 |
0.11 |
0.03 |
0.20 |
26–35 |
0.54 |
0.19 |
0.10 |
0.06 |
0.11 |
36–45 |
0.44 |
0.23 |
0.13 |
0.11 |
0.10 |
46–55 |
0.42 |
0.23 |
0.13 |
0.12 |
0.10 |
56–65 |
0.25 |
0.33 |
0.13 |
0.25 |
0.05 |
66–75 |
0.16 |
0.25 |
0.05 |
0.49 |
0.05 |
75+ |
0.06 |
0.24 |
0.05 |
0.58 |
0.07 |
Education |
χ2 = 142.53; p < 0.001 |
||||
None |
0.02 |
0.22 |
0.12 |
0.58 |
0.06 |
Lower |
0.10 |
0.34 |
0.14 |
0.36 |
0.06 |
Lower secondary |
0.20 |
0.35 |
0.16 |
0.22 |
0.07 |
Higher secondary |
0.40 |
0.27 |
0.10 |
0.15 |
0.09 |
Higher non-university |
0.50 |
0.22 |
0.09 |
0.07 |
0.11 |
University |
0.74 |
0.07 |
0.06 |
0.01 |
0.12 |
Social class |
χ2 = 29.52; p < 0.001 |
||||
Working class |
0.16 |
0.30 |
0.13 |
0.36 |
0.05 |
Lower middle class |
0.37 |
0.27 |
0.10 |
0.20 |
0.07 |
(Upper) middle class |
0.50 |
0.17 |
0.11 |
0.07 |
0.14 |
(Religious) World view |
χ2 = 154.80; p < 0.001 |
||||
Not religious |
0.48 |
0.21 |
0.09 |
0.15 |
0.08 |
Freethinker |
0.53 |
0.24 |
0.07 |
0.10 |
0.05 |
Christian, non-practicing |
0.14 |
0.25 |
0.16 |
0.34 |
0.11 |
Christian, church-going |
0.32 |
0.26 |
0.14 |
0.17 |
0.10 |
Other religion |
0.39 |
0.32 |
0.05 |
0.06 |
0.18 |
Appendix 2
Test statistics of single-group LCAs
Independence |
2 classes |
3 classes |
4 classes |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
S.pa elites |
||||
AIC |
17,019 |
15,973 |
15,838 |
15,731 |
BIC |
17,144 |
16,228 |
16,223 |
16,247 |
Sample-size adjusted BIC |
17,062 |
16,060 |
15,970 |
15,907 |
Entropy |
0.83 |
0.85 |
0.85 |
|
LMR adjusted LRT |
1094*** |
188 |
160 |
|
Parametric bootstrapped LRT |
1100*** |
189*** |
161*** |
|
Sp.a members |
||||
AIC |
21,708 |
20,457 |
20,261 |
20,153 |
BIC |
21,835 |
20,717 |
20,652 |
20,677 |
Sample-size adjusted BIC |
21,753 |
20,548 |
20,398 |
20,337 |
Entropy |
0.81 |
0.72 |
0.75 |
|
LMR adjusted LRT |
1298*** |
249 |
161 |
|
Parametric bootstrapped LRT |
1305*** |
250*** |
162*** |
|
Sp.a voters |
||||
AIC |
4386 |
4168 |
4106 |
4073 |
BIC |
4472 |
4342 |
4369 |
4424 |
Sample-size adjusted BIC |
4389 |
4174 |
4116 |
4085 |
Entropy |
0.83 |
0.86 |
0.90 |
|
LMR adjusted LRT |
271 + |
114 |
87 |
|
Parametric bootstrapped LRT |
273*** |
115*** |
88*** |
|
Sp.a ex-voters |
||||
AIC |
5869 |
5623 |
5537 |
5519 |
BIC |
5961 |
5811 |
5821 |
5898 |
Sample-size adjusted BIC |
5878 |
5643 |
5567 |
5558 |
Entropy |
0.81 |
0.82 |
0.84 |
|
LMR adjusted LRT |
298* |
139 |
72 |
|
Parametric bootstrapped LRT |
300*** |
140*** |
73*** |
|
Other voters |
||||
AIC |
16,096 |
15,642 |
15,372 |
15,254 |
BIC |
16,213 |
15,881 |
15,734 |
15,737 |
Sample-size adjusted BIC |
16,130 |
15,713 |
15,480 |
15,398 |
Entropy |
0.72 |
0.77 |
0.80 |
|
LMR adjusted LRT |
505** |
322*** |
171 |
|
Parametric bootstrapped LRT |
508*** |
323*** |
172*** |
Appendix 3
Test statistics of multi-group LCAs
AIC |
BIC |
Adj. BIC |
Entropy |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
4 class model |
||||
Heterogeneous |
41,236 |
43,299 |
42,162 |
0.88 |
Homogeneous |
41,352 |
41,963 |
41,626 |
0.89 |
5 class model |
||||
Heterogeneous |
41,089 |
43,665 |
42,245 |
0.87 |
Homogeneous |
41,130 |
41,890 |
41,471 |
0.86 |
6 class model |
||||
Heterogeneous |
41,006 |
44,195 |
42,392 |
0.86 |
Homogeneous |
40,980 |
41,890 |
41,388 |
0.85 |
Lo–Mendell–Rubin and bootstrapped LRT tests are not available for multi-group analysis
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Gaasendam, C.R., Abts, K., Swyngedouw, M. et al. Lost connection? The attitudinal and ideological (in)congruence of social democracy’s elites, members and voters in Flanders-Belgium. Acta Polit 56, 395–415 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-020-00156-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-020-00156-6